National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Alaska Support Office Alaska Park Science Anchorage, Alaska Connections to Natural and Cultural Resource Studies in Alaska’s National Parks Winter 2002 “The act of creating a park is really an act of faith in all of the is also providing new insights into the world around us. Table of Contents grand possibilities of the future. It is a contract with the future.” As part of our “contract with the future,” Alaska Park —Dr. Shirley Malcom, National Park Advisory Board Science can connect the public with their national parks The Great Eruption of 1912__________________ 5 and the natural and cultural resources found there. Alaska’s Digging up Dreams: The Razor Clam Welcome to our first issue of Alaska Park Science. This national parks serve to teach, inform, inspire and motivate Industry in Kukak Bay, Alaska ______________ 13 new semi-annual journal will share what we are learning in people. In the end, we hope the national parks will inspire Alaska’s national parks through the study of their vital cul- and encourage people to make a difference. Surprising Humpback Whale Songs tural and natural resources. in Glacier Bay National Park ______________ 17 Some of the best places in this country have been chosen Rob Arnberger as parks. These places are landscapes and historic shrines Regional Director, Alaska Region Little Known Mulchatna Villages Emerging in which we feel wonder, reverence, respect — and respon- National Park Service After 120 Years of Solitude ________________ 23 sibility. We are immensely proud that such places exist and that we are successfully preserving this natural and cultural The Retreat of Exit Glacier ________________ 27 heritage for future generations. As concepts of American ideas and values evolve, protecting living ideas is gaining Science News____________________________ 32-39 prominence nation-wide. The National Park Service not only Cover photograph © Alaska Volcano Observatory protects places, but also the ideas they represent. Page 3 photograph © National Park Service Sharing these ideas and what we have learned in our resource studies is essential. The National Park Service Alaska Park Science strives to connect education with research and science, Editor: Monica Shah for education can serve as the bridge between knowledge Project Leads: John Quinley and Jane Tranel, and responsibility. Education tools like Alaska Park Science Alaska Public Affairs Office, email: [email protected] will also serve as the connection between the public who Park Science Journal Board: own the resources and those given the responsibility to Ted Birkedal, Team Leader for Cultural Resources; manage them. The National Park system has been called Alex Carter, Team Manager for Biological “America’s greatest university without walls.” The benefits Resources Team; Joy Geiselman, Deputy Chief, Biological Science Office of almost 400 sites in this “university” system will enrich the USGS Alaska Science Center; educational offerings provided to the public. Sue Huse, Natural Resources Specialist; National parks are important scientific laboratories, in John Quinley, Assistant Regional Director addition to providing fabulous places for people to visit. for Communications; Because they are among the places least changed by people, Jane Tranel, Public Affairs Specialist; parks provide unique research opportunities. Nationally, Ralph Tingey, Associate Regional Director for Resources and Education this role has been advanced by the National Park Service’s Funded By: The Natural Resources Challenge Natural Resource Challenge, an effort funded by Congress Produced By: to expand the scope and quality of science in parks. Alaska has benefited from this initiative and from the many part- nerships built around expanding and sharing the knowledge gained in park areas. Research by the US Geological Sharing Alaska’s Natural and Cultural Heritage Survey-Alaska Science Center, universities and other agencies 2 About the Authors Jennifer Adleman is a geologist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center and a graduate student at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. John Branson is a historian for Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Port Alsworth, Alaska. A.S. Frankel works for Marine Acoustics Incorporated. Chris Gabriele is a wildlife biologist for Glacier Bay National Park. Susan Huse is a biologist for the Alaska Support Office. Katherine Johnson is a historian for Katmai National Park and Preserve, and a PhD candidate in Public History at Washington State University. 3 4 The Great Eruption of 1912 by Jennifer Adleman explosively hurling the molten rock sky- tally. Wildlife on Kodiak Island and in the — geologist with the Alaska Volcano ward, where it chilled quickly to volcanic Katmai region was decimated by ash and Observatory U.S. Geological Survey Alaska ash and pumice. The volume of pumice and acid rain from the eruption. Bears and Science Center and a graduate student at ash rushing out of the vent was so great that other large animals were blinded by thick the University of Alaska, Fairbanks not all of it became airborne. A flood of ash and many starved to death because pumice spilled out of the choked vent and large numbers of plants and small animals On the afternoon of June 6, 1912, a flowed as a pyroclastic flow—a dense, were smothered in the eruption. Birds volcanic eruption cloud rose 100,000 ft (32 tumbling mixture of pumice blocks, fine blinded and coated by volcanic ash fell km) into the sky above the Katmai region, ash, and hot gas—that moved down the to the ground. Even the region’s prolific 280 miles (450 km) southwest of Anchorage former Ukak River valley to form the nearly mosquitoes were exterminated. Aquatic on the Alaska Peninsula (Fig. 1). Explosions flat topography seen in the Valley of organisms in the region perished in the were even heard in Cordova, over 370 miles Ten Thousand Smokes today (Fig. 2) ash-clogged waters. Salmon, in all stages of (600 km) away from the Alaska Peninsula. (Fierstein, 1984). life, were destroyed by the eruption and its Winds pushed the ash cloud east and with- During the next three days, life on aftereffects. From 1915 to 1919, southwest- in a few hours, ash from a huge volcanic Kodiak Island was immobilized during the ern Alaska’s salmon-fishing industry was eruption began to fall on Kodiak Island, 60-hour eruption. Darkness and suffocat- devastated (Fierstein, 1998). The biological approximately 100 miles (170 km) south- ing conditions caused by the falling ash impact was far worse overall than that of Within the broken edifice of a decapitated east of the volcano. Within several hours and sulfur dioxide gas rendered villagers the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 (Fierstein Mount Katmai is a lake 2 miles (3 km) wide. © Alaska Volcano Observatory ash fell on Vancouver, British Columbia and helpless (Fig. 3). Among Kodiak’s 500 and Hildreth, 2001). Seattle, Washington. The next day the ash inhabitants, sore eyes and respiratory The impact to the land did not cease cloud passed over Virginia, and by June problems were widespread. Water became when the eruption ended. A number of 17th it reached the skies above Algeria in undrinkable. Radio communications were moderate sized lahars—volcanic debris Africa (Fierstein and Hildreth, 2001). disrupted and visibility was nil. Roofs in the flows consisting of rapidly flowing mixtures While those on board the steamship village collapsed under the weight of more of water, mud, and rock debris—resulted Dora in the Shelikof Strait, between Kodiak than a foot of ash. Buildings were destroyed from the 1912 eruption. The most publi- Island and the Alaska Peninsula, watched as avalanches of ash rushed down from cized lahars occurred a few years after the towering eruption cloud, pulses of nearby hillsides (Fierstein and Hildreth, 2001). the eruption itself. A landslide, triggered magma from beneath the volcano continued On June 9th Kodiak villagers saw the by earthquakes during the 1912 eruption, to reach the earth’s surface. As the magma first clear, ash-free skies in three days, but dammed the Katmai River in Katmai depressurized, gases quickly escaped, their environment had changed fundamen- Canyon. The Katmai River remained 5 tacular member of the monument system.” approaches the still-hot rock beneath © NationalGeographicSociety ©NationalGeographicSociety Observatory ©AlaskaVolcano (Glimpses of Our National Monuments, Novarupta. These few remaining fumaroles Volcanic particles suspended in the air, 1930). tap a deep heat source—molten rock Griggs and others believed that the below ground. This is quite different from dust and sulfurous aerosols, from the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes was a the “rootless” heat source of the extinct 1912 eruption were detected within modern-day example of how the geyser fumaroles, which was actually the cooling days over Wisconsin and Virginia and basins of Yellowstone Park were formed of the ash-flow itself (Fig. 6) (Fierstein, 1984). over California, Europe, and North as the region’s volcanoes first ceased their The origin of the magma expelled in the activity (Glimpses of Our National 1912 eruption has been a topic of great America within two weeks… Monuments, 1930). This turned out not to interest. In fact, in 1953 more than forty be the case. By the 1930s, the valley-filling years after the eruption, Dr. Garniss Curtis ash had cooled enough to allow liquid of the University of California discovered water to pass freely through without it that the main vent for the great eruption depression 2 miles (3 km) wide, called a turning to steam (Fig. 6). Today, the Valley of was not Mount Katmai, as previously caldera (Fig. 4) (Fierstein and Hildreth, Ten Thousand Smokes is largely smokeless. thought, but a new vent, now plugged by 2001). Although in the 1950s Dr. Curtis Warm vapors rise from a few places around the dome Griggs and his party named discovered what happened during the 1912 the Novarupta vent and along the margins Novarupta (Fig.